AFL, NRL Indigenous Round will see moving ceremonies and grand sentiments — and then what?

Celebrating Indigenous contributions to the AFL with "Dreamtime at the G" last year.

ABC Open contributor Wayne Quilliam

This weekend, both the AFL and NRL are celebrating the vast contribution of Indigenous players who provide welcome visibility and wonderful role models for a people too easily overlooked and forgotten.

There will be colourful jerseys, moving ceremonies, the soothing drone of the didgeridoo and grand sentiments about how much the first Australians have given to the game.

The sights and sounds of 40,000 years of Indigenous culture will be symbolised at football grounds across the country before vast audiences and then… what?

The answer lies in whether the AFL and NRL see Indigenous Round as an opportunity to go beyond the comfortable symbolism of inclusion and use the occasion to express support for more direct action and even controversial causes on behalf of their players.

Or whether they are merely appropriating Indigenous culture for yet another orgy of feel-good celebration that does more to advance the corporate interests of Australia's most predominant football codes than those it purports to honour.

There are many who will argue that it is possible for Indigenous Rounds to be both a powerful celebration of Indigenous culture and politics-free; that unity rather than confrontation will help "bring more Australians along for the ride" on contentious issues such as granting treaty and a voice to Parliament.

The investment of the Indigenous players who design guernseys and choreograph celebrations demonstrate they have now appropriated their own round and are using it to drive their personal messages.

But having created such a powerful platform around Indigenous culture, surely we are also entitled to ask the AFL and NRL where they stand on the really big issues confronting Indigenous Australians.

Same-sex marriage is just one recent example of an issue on which both the AFL and NRL took sides on behalf of their playing groups.

Although, as the non-binding postal ballot proved, they were surfing a wave of public support, not entering the more turbulent political waters of Indigenous affairs.

For the AFL, this Indigenous Round has proven particularly problematic because of the imminent release of The Final Quarter — a reportedly confronting documentary about the treatment of Adam Goodes in the bitter finals seasons, marred by racist jeering.

Typically, AFL officials have been heavily briefed and are "on message" about the documentary. Mea culpas have been issued and we've-learned-from-this statements released even before next week's media preview.

Indeed such are the depths of the AFL's official contrition you could be forgiven for thinking the league executives, Collingwood president Eddie McGuire and other heavyweights, are delighted to have been cast in the most unflattering terms because it will help "show how much we've grown as a competition".

Of course, the AFL's craven failure to acknowledge and respond to the racist element of Goodes's awful treatment, for fear of offending the sensibilities of the vilest element of its support base, is not absolved by the current frenzy of self-flagellation.

It merely presents a challenge: Do much better next time when confronted with similar circumstances or be condemned as opportunistic cause merchants who use the Indigenous brand to satisfy the clauses in government contracts and project good corporate citizenship.

The NRL's more tactile message

As it is, even as the lights go out and 80,000 fans celebrate the "Dreamtime at the G", there will be an uncomfortable sense that Indigenous Round merely highlights how out of touch the AFL remains with the real, dirt-under-the-fingernails problems confronting Indigenous Australians.

You might even argue that the symbolism of Indigenous Round is being used to absolve the league from confronting the hardcore issues in the communities from which many of its Indigenous players emerge.

The AFL's relatively strong response to the racial vilification of Nicky Winmar and Michael Long is rightly celebrated on Indigenous Round, along with their bravery.

Yet it is only six years since then Adelaide Crows recruiting chief Matthew Rendell lost his job for clumsily stating clubs would not recruit an Indigenous player unless he had one white parent — a statement rightly condemned, but which also revealed the massive disconnection between clubs intoxicated by what they once called "Aboriginal magic" and the everyday realities of the players they seek to recruit.

If the AFL sells an ethereal message around Indigenous Round, there is something more tactile about the NRL version.

That stems from the more organic connection between the regions and the clubs from which Indigenous players have come, compared with the AFL where there remains a sense Indigenous stars are "imported" from another planet.

As a consequence, the NRL has seemed better placed to use the Indigenous message to create practical solutions, such as the initiative whereby Indigenous youths were given jerseys if they met certain health conditions.

This direct connection with community is exemplified by Sydney Roosters star Latrell Mitchell's words in The Daily Telegraph about what he hopes to achieve in his Indigenous jersey this weekend.

"Because with Indigenous Australians there's this stereotype that says we're lazy, on the dole, get given houses," Mitchell said.

"Well, I want kids to know I've never been on the dole in my life. Want them to know I finished school and just went out and got myself a house. It wasn't given to me for free. I bought it."